1. Don’t reduce your withholdings. “If you get a big tax return, everyone is going to tell you to reduce your withholdings because you’re ‘lending money to the government for free,’” says Bissonnette. However, research shows that people tend to save large sums of money more so than they do with small chunks. “This story is proof—you’re not reading an article about what to do with the extra $40 in your paycheck because of your reduced withholdings. People are more deliberate with larger sums,” he adds.

2. Tackle your credit card debt. “If you have really high interest credit card debt, you definitely want to pay that off before adding to your retirement funds or investing your return elsewhere,” says Bissonnette. Say you have an 18 percent interest rate—you’re not going to beat that in the stock market, he says, so anything over 8 percent, you should just pay off the debt. “Personally, I would want to pay off credit card debt—that’s just something I’d rather not have. I’d feel silly walking around with credit card debt,” he says.

3. Weigh student loans versus retirement. The current interest rate for student loans is around 6.8%, so this one is kind of a toss-up, says Bissonnette. “Choose whatever will rid you of the most stress—if having student loans keeps you up at night, put this extra cash toward paying those off first,” he says. “For most people, because the benefits of retirement savings are so far down the road, the real benefit is you’ll feel better if you’re on top of it. People don’t emphasize that enough. It’s not like I’m sitting here really thinking about retirement—I just know that it’s good to save, which makes me feel better.”

4. Now it’s playtime. You probably want to let yourself spend a little bit of the money so it’s not totally depressing. “A good rule of thumb is to keep 10 percent of your tax return for fun stuff,” says Bissonnette. Say you’re getting $1,500 back— that means you keep $150. “It’s enough so that you can buy something cool, but you’re still not pulling out an amount that will really make a huge difference,? he adds.